About Stuart G. Hall

Making a positive difference one day at a time. #London #Leicester

Surprisingly inspiring town of Leamington Spa

Thanks to Powershift (motto: “data science is the new rocket science”) I recently visited Leamington Spa to present a few simple growth hacking ideas.

In the process of wandering around waiting for our meeting, I picked up two curious historical facts about WWII, which was unexpected as I associated the town’s history around the Royal Pump Rooms and Baths:

  • The blast from a bomb dropped by the German Luffwaffe moved the statue to Queen Victoria in the centre of town by one inch, but failed to destroy it.
  • The HQ for the Camouflage Unit was based in RLS during WWII, and employed many artists, including Christopher Ironside, who later designed the decimal coinage.


I also stumbled across a large Polish Club down one of the backstreets of the town. However, I missed the fact that the Free Czechoslovak Army, which was based there during the war.

If I get the chance to travel to Leamington again I’ll be sure to visit the memorial in Jephson Gardens, and do a little more ‘growth hacking’, history-geek-style.

While I was ‘killing time’ I also popped into see the film ‘Lucy’, directed by Luc Besson, at Leamington’s Vue Cinema, but had to leave at a critical point to make our meeting!

Screenshot 2014-12-10 17.09.24 (2)

How to find early stage investors using LinkedIn

 

LinkedIn_investors

Click the image to go to LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature, displaying results for keywords “angel investors” & for location “London, United Kingdom”

LinkedIn’s Advance Search is an effective way to find potential investors. Simply put the keywords “angel investor” or “seed investor” with UK as the location. Because of my network the search results in 509 entries for “seed investor” and over 1.4K for the keywords “angel investor”. These included 1st degree connections I can contact directly, 2nd degree connections which share a connection with me, and 3rd/Group connections.

The method that I have been trained in by Mike Clark at a recent Entrepreneurs in London meetup (click link for post-meetup discussion) says you then contact your ‘shared connection’ for 2nd degree connections (the link text appears in green below the entry) and ask them to email the target with the details you want them to receive. It works much better than LinkedIn’s ‘Get Introduced’ feature!

Next, wondering about what to send investor, in the way of a deck and intro text? See below for expert advice from Chance Barnett, CEO of crowdfunding.com:

When you ask for intros, give the person making the introduction a very short email ‘blurb’ of suggested language for them to use. Make sure that blurb includes a single link / call to action. By using a single link to your online profile on a site, you can allow people to pass along your pitch and all your core company info with a single URL. The moment that any potential investor clicks on that link, they experience the pitch and message you’ve crafted for them online, in a more dynamic and powerful environment than just a PPT attachment.

In my case, when I was fundraising for Crowdfunder in the past and people made intros to investors, that message and link went something like this:

“Hey,

I wanted you to meet Chance, the CEO of Crowdfunder.

He’s doing some interesting stuff with equity crowdfunding and the company has some great growth as a leader in the space. Thought you two might want to chat.

His deck and info on the company are here:

http://crowdfunder.com/crowdfunder

Hope you two connect,”